1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for creation, sending, sorting, and delivery of mail, and more importantly to altering mailing parameters, such as delivery addresses, mode of processing, and/or mode of delivery, based on business parameters associated with the content or nature of the mail or characteristics of the sender.
2. Description of the Related Art
Under certain circumstances, a recipient of mail may wish to expedite receipt of the mail for business reasons. For example, where the mail includes a high value payment from a customer business reasons, such as prevailing interest rates, may dictate expediting receipt of the payment despite added mail delivery cost. Similarly, where the mail includes an executed contract, expedited receipt of the mail delivery is likely preferred.
In some instances, the sender may purposely delay mail delivery. The sender may wish to take advantage of the “float” between the time payment is placed in the mail and when it is delivered, relying on the mailing date as timely transmittal of payment. Further, many senders will choose lowest cost mailing options for sending payments.
In some instances, a recipient of mail may request that the mail be sent to a particular address, which will aid in processing the mail once received. Typically, such account processing centers are located at addresses that are remote from the location of the sender, such as in different cities or states. Some senders are reluctant to send payments to remote locations, preferring instead, to send the payments to a local address of the recipient. Similarly, customers who outsource their invoice and payment processing in a “lockbox” arrangement may desire to keep the invoice payment address unchanged to conceal the outsourcing arrangement.
Reasons other than the value of the contents of the mail may dictate expediting delivery. For example, a recipient may wish to expedite return mail sent by preferred customers. This may provide better customer service due to expedited response to customer correspondence.
Up until now, recipient-dictated modes of delivery have been rudimentary at best. Typically, the recipient will need to send a postage paid, self-addressed return envelope along with the original mailing to ensure desired return mail mode. This can be costly where the customer fails to use the return mailer or alters the return mailer, such as address. Further, such a system does not allow for real-time or semi-real-time decisions based on changing business factors.
“Mail Intercept” services have been available, where postal carriers will manually redirect whole blocks of mail from one destination to another. Typically this is performed on a zip-code or zip+4 code basis, rather than on a piece basis, and does not allow the granularity of choices available in the invention.
As an example, when a bill was sent, if the interest rates were fairly high, the account manager may have sent a return mailer with the bill that had a pre-paid expedited mode of delivery so that the account manager would receive payment more timely. However, during the delay of receipt of the bill by the customer and the customer initiating return payment, interest rates may have lowered to the point that the cost of expedited delivery outweighs the benefit of early receipt of the payment.
As another example, an account manager may operate more than one account processing facility located at different addresses, which are both capable of processing payments. It may be preferable to direct payments to either one of the facilities based on processing workloads at the facilities at a given time. Such processing workloads may be difficult to predict at the time the bill is sent with the return mail envelope to the customer. Real-time or semi-real-time determinations regarding routing of return mail may be needed in this instance.
In some instances, mail delivery services may have different processing procedures for different classes of mail, where higher class mail is processed more timely. Here again, it may be advantageous to indicate to the mail delivery service the desire to expedite certain mail regardless of how the sender initially sent the piece of mail. In some instances, the mail delivery service may have different facilities where a piece of mail may be processed. Providing an indication to the mail delivery service regarding expedited delivery may aid the mail service provider in determining which processing center to use for the mail processing based on current processing delays at each facility. In some instances, it may be advantageous to include indication on the piece of mail informing the mail processing service to process the piece of mail at a particular processing location that may either have expedited processing and/or special procedures in place for processing mail from or to a particular entity. Up to now, there are no known procedures for providing such information to the mail delivery service.